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The Spectacle Blog
I spent a good part of the weekend watching the Australian Baseball League (ABL) Championship between the Perth Heat and the Melbourne Aces which aired on the MLB Network.
The ABL Championship was a best two out of three series and I saw Games 2 and 3 with booth games lasting 13 innings. Melbourne won Game 2 by a score of 3-2 while Perth clinched the championship today with a 7-6 victory. Perth scored the winning run on a wild pitch. It was Perth’s second consecutive ABL Championship.
It was pretty heartbreaking for Aces reliever Bubbie Buzachero. He had pitched eight innings of scoreless relief. In the top of the 13th inning, Buzachero hit the leadoff batter and he was removed from the game in favor of Andrew Russell. Although it was Russell who unleashed the wild pitch, Buzachero took the loss.
One of the most interesting aspects of watching the game was listening to the Australian broadcasters. Once I got past the accents, it wasn’t all that different from watching a game broadcast by an American or a Canadian crew. The most noticeable difference was that the speed of pitches was measured in kilometers rather than miles per hour.
The one other difference I noticed was early on in today’s game centered on a discussion about Perth starting pitcher Geoff Brown. The broadcasters noted he was drafted in 2007 by the Kansas City Royals in the 23rd round but that he opted to attend the University of Washington. They were puzzled that anyone would turn down an opportunity to pitch in professional baseball. But consider the case of Tim Lincecum, another University of Washington alumnus. He was drafted in both 2003 and 2005 by the Chicago Cubs and the Cleveland Indians, respectively, but did not sign because he was drafted in low rounds. Lincecum would sign with the San Francisco Giants after they made him their first round pick in the 2006 MLB Draft.
Although not as popular as rugby or cricket, baseball does have a following in Australia and has been played there as long back as the 1890s. I actually got to see some Australian baseball in 2010 during a visit to Thunder Bay when I saw them play the United States in the World Junior Baseball Championship. Graeme Lloyd, who pitched with the Milwaukee Brewers, New York Yankees, Toronto Blue Jays, Montreal Expos, Florida Marlins, New York Mets and Kansas City Royals, was the pitching coach. My Dad actually talked to him and told him he could still pitch. Lloyd replied that he had a sore arm. I mention this because Lloyd also served as pitching coach for the Heat.
Despite the array of programming on the MLB Network, I am counting the days until Opening Day. Watching baseball from Down Under has satiated my appetite for now.
View all comments (23) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Aaron Goldstein
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/02/12/baseball-down-under
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Casey Abell| 2.12.12 @ 7:49PM
From about the mid-1990s to four or five years ago, Australia had the world's best team in baseball's ancient and distant cousin, cricket. In fact, the Australian national team may well have been the best in the long history of cricket.
I first saw cricket as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya, and I've followed the sport off and on since then. You can watch just about any major international match on various pirate sites. So I'm used to hearing Aussie accents on cricket telecasts.
But it was a little jarring to hear the accents on baseball. At least the last two games in the ABL championship were terrific extra-inning cliffhangers.
By the way, cricket has finally gotten the idea from baseball that folks would like a version of the game which doesn't last forever. So cricket has come up with the three-hour "Twenty20" format. Though still derided by purists as an abomination, the T20 format has become the sport's biggest ticket-seller and ratings-getter. Australia has its own domestic "Big Bash" league in the format. If you want to see what it looks like, try this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUg_zwcH5nA
Gene Hoyas | 2.13.12 @ 12:36AM
I watched the video - at least the first third. Good grief...I finally found a sport more boring than baseball.
Casey Abell| 2.13.12 @ 9:04AM
Well, if you don't like bat-and-ball sports, I guess you better steer clear of both baseball and cricket.
Used to get interested in arguments over which sports were "boring." Don't much care any more. To each their own. I think soccer is about as interesting as watching rocks lie on the ground. But it's far and away the world's most popular sport.
Bob Grant| 2.13.12 @ 10:44AM
No offense but many in this country have been conditioned to not like soccer. To say Soccer is boring but baseball is not shows a major bias.
Soccer is the antithesis of baseball BECAUSE of the ball movement. It's a beautiful culmination of teamwork, strategy, and athleticism. When played at it's highest level (The Premier League), there's simply no better spectator sport. In addition; it's commercial free; predictable visa vie the time one expects to invest watching a game (under 2 hours); and fewer obnoxious participants.
Bob Grant| 2.13.12 @ 10:55AM
I would challenge you to get yourself the largest HD television you can afford, purchase FOX Soccer Channel, wake up early on Saturday/Sunday morning and tune into a live Manchester United/Chelsea, Manchester City/Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur/Liverpool match and try to not be entertained. You will fail.
Casey Abell| 2.13.12 @ 11:02AM
To me soccer looks like a defense-strangled sport where true scoring chances are excruciatingly few and far between. But like I said, to each their own. It's obvious that most of the world disagrees with me.
I do like rugby better than American football, though. I can see why rugby has prevented American football from expanding much outside the U.S.
Casey Abell| 2.13.12 @ 11:07AM
And by the way, I do have Fox Soccer and Fox Soccer Plus on my system. At least Fox Soccer Plus shows the Heineken Cup, the England (rugby) premiership, and some other northern hemisphere competitions.
Too bad they lost the southern hemisphere rights, and they don't have the World Cup or Six Nations. (BBC America shows one game a round from the Six Nations, and they somehow manage to pick the most boring one every time.)
Foc Soccer Plus also has the rights to the rugby league Four Nations. Watched a few of those games on the channel.
Bob Grant| 2.13.12 @ 11:16AM
When someone describes soccer as a 'defense-strangled sport' that generally tells me their exposure to the game is watching some low level version of the sport like the MLS, college, or a Saturday morning kids game where, yes indeed, it's excruciating to watch because there's no 'flow' to it; just a bunch of chaotic movement of players and the ball, which is usually high in the air too often. In good soccer, the ball rarely leaves the turf, and is generally hitting some intended target, generating a 'flow' where each player seems to know exactly where the other is and is two steps ahead of it's opponent. Remember the Lakers in their heyday back in the 80's when Showtime was at it's peak? That's what you see when you watch a good soccer match.
---- I see NBC is pushing Rugby Sevens because it's going to be an Olympic sport this year. Like you, I enjoy rugby as well.
Casey Abell| 2.13.12 @ 11:24AM
Um, I don't know about defense strangling things only in scruffier soccer competitions. At the very highest level, the 2010 World Cup, the sides averaged barely over one goal a game. Only the 1990 World Cup had lower scoring. Even some soccer, er, "football" writers grumped about it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/foot.....-world-cup
JimH| 2.13.12 @ 9:24AM
Rounders is the more likely ancestor of baseball.
Casey Abell| 2.13.12 @ 10:16AM
Rounders is almost certainly the direct ancestor of baseball. But cricket is definitely a distant cousin of baseball. Nobody really knows just how these bat-and-ball games developed in Renaissance England, because nobody bothered to track these silly little games. But there's an obvious family similarity among the games.
Just as there's an obvious family similarity between, say, American football and rugby. Though the relationship is more direct there.
Floyd Looney| 2.12.12 @ 9:01PM
Very interesting, would you consider the ABL to about the level of AAA? I have heard that some Korean baseball could be double-A ball.
Aaron Goldstein| 2.12.12 @ 9:49PM
I would say ABL is at about the same level as Japan which is to say somewhere between AAA and MLB.
W| 2.13.12 @ 8:03AM
There are leagues in Japan, Taiwan, Europe, Italy, Mexico, Latin America, and and some countries I can't remember.
Casey Abell| 2.13.12 @ 9:06AM
Definitely disagree. Japan won the first couple of world baseball classics. Australia, well, didn't. They didn't come anywahere close. Japanese baseball is way ahead of the ABL in quality.
Aaron Goldstein| 2.13.12 @ 9:42AM
Australia beat Japan to win the Silver Medal at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.
Casey Abell| 2.13.12 @ 10:19AM
Anything can happen in one game. Over something like twenty games, it's a safe bet that the top players in Japan would beat the top players in Australia at least 75-80% of the time.
Aaron Goldstein| 2.13.12 @ 10:32AM
I doubt that very much. Based on what I've seen the Japanese and Australian leagues are very evenly matched. The games between MLB and the Taiwan All-Stars last fall were far more of a mismatch.
Casey Abell| 2.13.12 @ 10:54AM
Sorry, the Aussies are going to have to start doing a lot better in the world baseball classic before I can seriously consider them at "AAAA" status. Australia's record in the classic is 1-5, and they've never made it beyond the frst round.
Aaron Goldstein| 2.13.12 @ 4:47PM
Six games spaced out over three years is hardly a representative sample.
Bob Grant| 2.13.12 @ 10:14AM
Aaron,
You need to spend less time at MLB Network and more at FOX Soccer. The Premier League is in full force, along with the Championship League and the FA Cup.
Come on man. This is supposed to be baseball's off season. There's plenty of time in the coming months for you to watch the Texas Rangers gear up for another World Series run, and use your beloved Red Sox as their doormats.
European Soccer. Learn it. Know it. Live it.
Casey Abell| 2.13.12 @ 10:26AM
Don't much care for soccer. But I have been watching some rugby on Fox Soccer Plus, the channel that inherited the old Setanta rights to various rugby competitions.
Aaron Goldstein| 2.13.12 @ 10:30AM
I don't get my kicks with soccer.